


Let's Run Away

by heyro



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Family Drama, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Love Confessions, Running Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:22:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26214049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyro/pseuds/heyro
Summary: Uma hates Captain Hook. He's mean and violent and - mostly - he doesn't leave Harry alone.She's always watched in silence while the pirate kept bringing down her best friend. But this time, Hook has crossed all the limits and Uma can't hold it anymore: she decides to confront him, sure that she'll get it her way. And that Harry will never know.But things don't always go as planned...
Relationships: Gil & Harry Hook & Uma, Gil & Uma (Disney: Descendants), Harry Hook & Captain Hook, Harry Hook/Uma
Comments: 3
Kudos: 51





	Let's Run Away

Uma hates Captain Hook.  
She hates most adults on the Isle. They live in a constant regret for their past lives, consumed by resentment for their old enemies, and they just assume that it’s okay to dump on their children every single drop of hard feelings that they have in their bodies.  
But the hate that she has for Harry’s father does not compare to anything else. Not even for the resentment she holds for her mother.  
Ursula is blinded by bitterness, just like most of the worst villains on the Isle. She likes bossing people around and being mean to each and every human being that surrounds her.  
Hook is different. Things surely got worse after he got imprisoned on the Isle, but he’d always been a jerk. Even before the Isle. Even before Peter Pan and the crocodile. He does not know how to love and appreciate another person, his only aim is to cause suffering, either physical or psychological. There’s nothing good in him. At least Ursula shows the tiniest bit of appreciation when Uma pulls a triple shift at work or when she does something like winning a fight or a contest to strengthen her position as leader of the Isle; hell, she even sometimes shows _love_ to her moray eel sidekicks, she calls them nicknames or something like that. But Uma has never heard – not even once – that Captain Hook has ever shown any feeling that is not resentment, hate or need for vengeance.  
This alone could not bother the sea witch’s daughter less. She doesn’t care much about what other people do. If the old, drunken pirate wants to go around hating and beating and threatening people, it certainly isn’t any of Uma’s concerns.  
What she _cannot_ stand is Hook getting into his son’s head. It isn’t even the physical violence that bothers her. They all got their fair share of beating from their parents, but now Hook knows better that physically fight his middle child, who has grown into a tall, well-built eighteen-year-old. Even though the captain of the Jolly Roger knows his son has a soft spot for him and would never do him any serious harm, Uma thinks he’s still scared to provoke him, because he knows that it would be his son to prevail in a physical fight.  
What bothers Uma is having to see Harry absent-minded, his gaze lost while he revives the horrible words that his father tells him from the moment he wakes up in the morning to the moment he falls asleep at night. What Uma really can’t stand is seeing her first mate doubt himself because of what his father tells him.  
“You okay, Captain?”  
The familiar sound of Gil’s voice distracts her from her thoughts. She’s sitting on the base of the bowsprit, casually glancing at her crew working on deck. It’s a pretty busy day: there has been a storm during the night and the deck is full of leaves and seaweed and shattered parts of sails. One of the smaller masts has fallen down, and now the crew is busy putting everything back in order.  
Uma turns slightly to look at Gil. “Not really” she admits.  
The second mate climbs up the railing to sit next to his captain.  
“Talk to me, if you want” he offers. “I know I’m not Harry, but I’m still family.”  
She gives him a little smile, then decides to open up. She looks around, to make sure that nobody is near enough to hear what she’s about to say, then still decides to lower her voice.  
“It actually _is_ about Harry” she confesses. Gil looks around, too. The two pirates spot the object of their conversation on the other end of the ship. He’s supposed to be directing the work on that side, but instead he is distracted, lost, and sometimes it looks like his hands are trembling. Uma notices that he’s not holding his hook, but he keeps it tied to his belt.  
“Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” Gil notices. “He looks like he’s in another dimension.”  
Uma closes her hands in two fists, so tight that her nails will probably leave marks on the leather gloves.  
“It’s that jerk’s fault” she growls. She doesn’t even need to say the name. “I could just go over there and kill him” she adds, lightly pointing with her head to the place where the Jolly Roger is docked, a couple of feet from their own ship.  
“I though it was him” Gil agrees. “It’s getting worse. When it seems like he can’t say anything worse, suddenly he pulls out some more crap to beat Harry down.”  
“He didn’t want to tell me everything, this time around, but he mentioned something about his mother” Uma tells him. She notices Gil’s expression getting even more serious. They both know that Harry’s mother is the most sensitive topic for him. From what Harry told about her, Uma has learned that she was a wonderful woman and that she loved her children deeply. One of Harry’s goals in life is to live to make his mother proud, even now that she has passed away for so many years.  
“He only said a few, rambling sentences, he was too upset to properly talk” Uma continues, reminiscing the brief conversation she had with her first mate earlier. “From what I got, I think Hook told him that if his mother could see him, she would be ashamed of him.”  
Her voice is barely audible when she pronounces the last few words. Her heart shrinks at the thought of how Harry must be feeling right now.  
“What a jerk” Gil comments. Then his expression softens and gives a worried look at Harry.  
The two remain silent for a moment. Uma knows what Gil is thinking and hopes that he won’t say it, because if she hears it then there’s no stopping her.  
“Honestly, I don’t know how much more he can take in” he says, with a very low voice. “I think that evil old man is really close to breaking him.”  
_That’s it_. She can’t hold it anymore.  
Uma stands up and starts walking towards the stairway. Gil runs after her.  
“Where are you going?” he asks.  
“ _You know_ where I’m going” she answers, angrily.  
Gil extends and arm and grabs her wrist, in an attempt to stop her. “Don’t” he says. “It’s too dangerous. You don’t know if he’s angry or drunk. He wouldn’t lay a finger on Harry, but he could easily hurt _you_ ” he points out. He looks worried sick.  
But he loosens his grip on her wrist anyway. He knows that if Uma wants to do something, nothing can stop her.  
“I’m not afraid of him” she states. “Don’t tell Harry.”  
Then she turns around and gets off the Lost Revenge.

The situation on the Jolly Roger is pretty similar to the one on the Lost Revenge: most of the pirates are busy fixing the mess caused by the storm. So, even though Uma is really easy to spot, with her turquoise braids, no one seems to notice that she’s boarded the ship.  
She’s spent some time on Hook’s ship during the years she has been friends with Harry, enough to know how to move around it. She goes below deck and it doesn’t take her long to find Hook’s room. When she’s a couple of feet from the door, a voice makes her stop.  
“Hey, kid! You can’t go there!”  
She turns around. A member of Hook’s crew – she can’t really identify him – is standing at the base of the stairs that lead to the deck and is clearly talking to Uma.  
She raises an eyebrow. “Shut up” she blurts out.  
Then she turns around again and, with a few steps, she reaches Hook’s door. She doesn’t even knock.  
“I said I didn’t want to be annoyed by any of you idiots!” the pirate screams, not even bothering to turn around.  
He is sitting on his armchair, his head reclined on the backrest and his feet resting on an ottoman. He keeps his eyes closed and doesn’t open them to check who’s bothering him.  
“Do I look like I care?” Uma asks, and crosses her arms, waiting to see Hook’s reaction.  
He opens his eyes.  
“Well, well, if this isn’t my son’s annoying girlfriend” he chuckles, taking his feet away from the ottoman and standing up. “Where’s that useless brat?”  
“Not here” Uma replies coldly. She decides not to talk back on the ‘girlfriend’ zinger.  
She hears some footsteps in the hall, then the crew member from a few seconds earlier appears on the door.  
“I’m sorry, Captain, I couldn’t stop her” he apologizes.  
Hook gives him a deadly glance. “It’s a little late for that now, isn’t it?” he ironically asks. Then he nods with his hand. “Go away” he orders to the other pirate, who does as he’s told.  
Harry’s father takes a few steps towards Uma.  
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he innocently asks.  
The sea witch squints, trying to tame the anger that’s quickly building up inside of her.  
“You know why I’m here. You know it damn well” she replies.  
The pirate laughs. “Do I?” he provokes her.  
She takes a deep breath. As much as she wants to beat up this jerk, she has to admit that Gil is actually right. She’s a great fighter, but this old bastard would prevail. He’s taller, stronger and he has a frigging hook, while she came here in such a rush that she didn’t even bring her sword.  
“I’m gonna ask you this nicely” she says, in a calm tone. “Stop talking crap to Harry. Leave him alone. He’s not the kid you can bully anymore.”  
Hook bursts out laughing again and the few hopes to do this easily that Uma had vanish. He’s too rotten to be reasoned with.  
“And, if he’s not a kid, why can’t he come down here and tell me that himself?” he laughs. “It’s because he’s a brat. That’s why. He’s a vile coward that cannot stand up for himself and has to take orders from an arrogant sea _bitch_.”  
Uma shakes her head, even though she has to admit that she found the pun a little bit amusing. “Your games don’t work with me. Your words count less than nothing to me” she says. “I’m asking nicely, for now. If you don’t quit, you and your ridiculous crew will see what the Lost Revenge can actually do” she adds, raising her voice.  
He raises his hook. “Are you threatening me?”  
Uma feels a sting of fear seeing the man raising his weapon, but doesn’t let it show and lifts her head, looking right at him.  
“I am _warning_ you.”  
“I don’t need warnings from a little snot” he says, disgusted.  
“I think you do. And I also think that you’re so absorbed in your little bubble of misery and remorse that you are losing sight of who holds control over the seas of the Isle” she states, regaining her confidence. “While you whine over how you pathetically lost the battle of a lifetime against a _brat_ , your trades are sinking and ours are rising. While you do nothing but drinking to forget how you were dumb enough to get your hand eaten by a crocodile, your miserable ship is falling apart and ours keep getting sturdier.” She takes a step forward, crossing her mental line of safety distance from Hook. “While you chew on your elbows because you know you could _never_ get the power you aim at, your crew starts despising you and talking behind your back and mine is stronger and more united than ever.”  
Hook growls, but Uma does not give him the opportunity to talk back just yet.  
“So yeah, _I_ am warning _you_ , because I am captain of the most powerful crew of the Isle, while you’re nothing but an old, whiny loser that takes enjoyment from bullying his own son.”  
When she feels the dull pain on her cheek and nose, she realizes that she should have never crossed the safety distance line, but she was too caught up in her speech to think straight.  
Hook’s hand hits her so hard that she loses her balance and almost falls to the ground, but eventually just hits doorframe and stays on her feet, holding a hand on her face.  
“I _do not_ accept to be talked to in this way by a nobody like you!” the pirate roars. “If your mother didn’t teach you how to behave then maybe it’s time that someone else does!”  
Uma only makes it in time to look at her fingers and find blood that another voice breaks the silence that has fallen in the room.  
“What’s going on?”  
It’s Harry. Nobody speaks. ‘What is he doing here?’ Uma asks herself, even if she already knows the answer: either he saw her leaving their ship or Gil told him where she was going.  
“What the fuck is going on?!” he asks again, louder this time. “Why the hell were you yelling at her, Dad?”  
Uma tries to cover her bleeding nose with her hand, because she knows that if Harry sees it, it’s over.  
“Leave it alone, Harry. Let’s go” she says, placing her free hand on his chest and trying to push him away. She shouldn’t have done that, because now she’s drawn his attention on her and he’s noticed the blood.  
“Why is you nose bleeding?” he asks, forgetting his father for a minute. He sounds so confused, but Uma know that soon he’ll add up the pieces.  
She wipes her nose with her sleeve, but she feels a trickle of blood dripping down again.  
“It’s nothing. Come on” she tries to minimize again. He puts his hands on he shoulders and forces her to look up at him.  
“Did he touch you?” he asks, his voice low at first. Then, when Uma doesn’t answer, he completely forgets her and directs all of his rage to his father. “Did you put your hands on her?” he thunders.  
He walks past Uma, right towards him, despite the girl’s attempts at keeping him far from Hook.  
“Answer me, now!” Harry shouts.  
“Don’t you dare talk to me like that, or I’m gonna slap you too!” is Hook’s response.  
The older pirate doesn’t even see the punch coming. It slams on the man’s face violently and Uma could swear she’s heard the noise of a cracking bone.  
Harry doesn’t stop. After the first punch comes the second, and then the third and the fourth. He starts yelling, too, accusing his father of having ruined his life, telling that he could do everything he wanted to him but that he should have not laid a finger on Uma. It’s all confused and mixed with the creepy sound of the fist hitting the face and the miserable wailing of the captain. By the time Uma realizes what is going on, Captain Hook’s face is covered in blood.  
And it doesn’t look like Harry is done. She has to stop him. And not because Hook could react and hurt his son, she realizes. It’s because Harry is so infuriated that he could easily punch his father to death and then he’d have to live with the guilt of having killed him.  
Uma throws herself between the two men, knowing that the only thing that can stop Harry is the fear of hitting her.  
“Get out of my way, Uma” he roars. She has never heard him speak like this. She has seen him angry before, but it was nothing like this. This is out of control.  
“No, Harry, stop! Stop!” she screams. “He’s not worth it, please!”  
Her first mate is double her weight, so it’s not too difficult for him to lift her and move her aside. Before he can start hitting Hook again – the man has taken advantage of Uma’s little interruption to slide away, trying to escape from his son’s fury –, she manages to grab his right arm.  
“Please, Harry. Stop” she says again, but he’s not listening and she’s struggling to hold on his arm. She has to call for help, and not any help. “Harriet! CJ! Help” she starts calling.  
The Hook sisters must be nearby. They probably heard all the screaming, or they noticed their brother storming in their father’s office, because they arrive a few seconds later.  
“Oh my God” Harriet whispers, and she hurries to help her father get away from Harry.  
CJ, on the other hand, freezes. She glances at her bleeding father first, then at her raging brother and lastly at Uma, struggling to keep ahold of her best friend. When she sees the blood dripping from the sea witch’s nose, she seems to understand why her brother is so furious.  
“Help me, please” Uma begs her. “He’s gonna kill him.”  
But she almost doesn’t need to say anything, because CJ immediately rushes to help Uma take Harry away from the room.  
“Like you didn’t know what you were getting into hitting her, you fool!” Uma hears Harriet shout at her father while they leave the room with Harry.  
When they’re far enough, Harry eventually gives up fighting. He still has a raging look on his face, with his eyes and nostrils widened, his muscles tensed and his bloody hands closed in two fists.  
CJ stops but Uma doesn’t. She keeps ahold of Harry’s arm and continues dragging him away, up on deck then out of the ship, while she keeps telling him to leave it alone, to just go home and forget him. She repeats the same few words to him like a mantra, hoping that it will help to calm him down.  
They come back to the Lost Revenge in a matter of minutes. Nobody asks question seeing Uma’s bleeding nose or Harry’s upset face or blood-covered hands.  
The captain and her first mate stop near the stairs that lead below deck.  
“Breathe, breathe, breathe” she whispers, pulling him closer. “Everything’s fine. Let it go.”  
He rises a hand to cup her face. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you? I swear next time I see him I’ll finish what…”  
She feels him getting angry again, or maybe he never calmed down, he just acts caring with her because it’s in his nature to do it. Uma places a hand on his, still resting on her cheek, and she lightly stokes it.  
“I’m fine, I promise” she interrupts, reassuring him. “It’s not worth it, Harry. I’m okay.”  
“I hate him, Uma. I hate him so much, yet I can’t seem to get away from him” he confesses. He pulls away from her a bit. “But this time he crossed the line. He can drag me down all he wants, but he cannot lay a finger on you.” He shakes his head. “I’m so sorry he hurt you. I should’ve been there. Why did you go in there without me? When Gil told me, I bolted but I didn’t make it in time to stop him.”  
Uma takes his hands and tries to calm him.  
“It doesn’t matter, Harry. It’s not your fault” she repeats. “He’s not worth you anger.”  
But he just does not listen. He goes on, apologizing for something he didn’t do, promising that he’ll get revenge on his father, getting angrier and angrier. Uma grabs his face in her hands and pulls him down, kissing him.  
She doesn’t even think about it. She just does it, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. As a matter of fact, she thinks while she feels Harry’s muscles relaxing and his breathing slowing down, it _is_ the most natural thing in the world. She doesn’t even care that their whole crew is probably staring at them, right now.  
She pulls away a little.  
“What was that for?” he asks. She’s glad to hear that his voice is not trembling anymore.  
“Are you calmer now?” she asks, not really answering his question.  
She realizes he’s holding her hips only when his grip tightens.  
“Hell, yeah” he answers, with a little smile.  
Uma smiles, too. She glances at his right hand, the one he used to beat his father.  
“Let’s go below deck and take a look at that hand” she says.  
He takes it up to look at it himself. He probably hadn’t even noticed that he got injured until now.  
“And at your nose, too” he adds, caressing he cheek.  
Uma nods, then takes Harry’s non-injured hand and leads him below deck, to the kitchen. She gets clean cloths and a bottle of rum, while he takes a bucket of salty water and some ice from the cooler.  
“Come on up” he says, patting on the table.  
Uma sits on it and they’re now the same height.  
“I don’t think it’s bleeding anymore” she reassures him.  
She looks at him while he dips a cloth in the water, wrings out the excess and proceeds to carefully wash away the dried-up blood under her nose, resting his other hand on her jawline.  
“No, it’s not” he confirms. He lightly taps the area his father hit. “Does it hurt?” he asks.  
Uma shakes her head. “Wasn’t that hard of a hit, anyways” she lies. It actually _was_ a pretty strong blow. The only reason she didn’t fall on the ground was because the doorframe was right behind her.  
Harry raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s why it bled and kept on bleeding for, like, half an hour.”  
She pats his shoulder. “Shut up” she laughs.  
“Promise you’re gonna ice it, though. I mean, when you’re finished with _this_ mess” he says, raising his right hand. “We don’t want an ugly bruise to ruin this beautiful face of yours” he adds, with a lower and more hoarse voice. He caresses her cheek and leans down to give her the quickest kiss on the lips.  
For a second, she’s almost hypnotized by him, by his voice, his eyes, his touch, _his lips_. Just for a second.  
“ _Shut up_!” she repeats, unable to conceal a laugh. “Stop being such a flirt. And let me see that hand. I’m sure you hit the floor once or twice.”  
He winks, already disobeying to her order of not being a flirt. “Can’t promise I didn’t” he jokes. She laughs again and jumps off the table, then takes a look at Harry’s hand.  
The knuckles are scraped and there’s some wood splinters in the wound here and there. She knows somewhere in the cupboards there are some first aid tools – a pair of tweezers, surgical thread and a needle, maybe even a scalpel – and it doesn’t take her long to find them. Harry glances at the tools.  
“You won’t be needing _all_ of that, right?” he asks, a little bit frightened.  
She chuckles. Although she’s tempted to scare him a bit, in the end she only takes the tweezers and reassures him.  
“Don’t worry, chickenshit. Just these” she says, moving close to the window. “Come here, I’ll need some sunlight” she orders, and she hears him follow her.  
Uma takes Harry’s injured hand in front of her, to get the best light on it, and gives her back to him. He leans in over her shoulder to watch her work and rests his free hand on the wooden windowsill, in such a way that Uma is now surrounded by his arms, even if he’s not really holding her.  
She has to admit to herself that it’s not really easy working with his presence right around her. She can feel his breathing on her neck, she’s suddenly aware of the halo of his chest near her back and his intense sandalwood scent is all she can smell. Eventually, she manages to take all the splinters off.  
“That’s the last one” she says, holding the minuscule wooden piece up with the tweezers.  
“This means I have to let you go?” he asks, lowering his face to brush his lips against her cheek. A shiver runs through her spine up to the base of her neck.  
“Geez, what have I done with that kiss?” Uma jokes, chuckling. “At least I see that you’re not upset anymore. Had I known it, I would have done it a lot earlier” she points out, turning around. She finds herself pressed between the window and Harry. And she finds herself not really minding it.  
That kiss _really_ triggered something. They’ve always been close and kind of into each other, for as long as she can remember, but they’ve never been so obvious about it. Of course, they were still _more obvious_ than the average kids on the Isle, but still.  
He puts on a smirk. “Honestly, I kind of wish you did.”  
She takes his chin between her fingers and lightly strokes it with her thumb.  
“Come on, let me put a bandage on the wound and then you can flirt with me all you want” she says, then she frees herself from his hold and takes his healthy hand, pulling him back to the table where she had left the rest of the supplies.  
Uma feels Harry’s eyes on her as he watches her while she silently opens the bottle of rum and pours some of it on the abrasion to disinfect it, making him hiss as the alcohol burns on his open wound. She lightly dabs it with one cloth, then takes another clean one to use as a bandage and carefully wraps it around Harry’s hand, securing it with a little knot on the palm.  
Without a word, Uma sits back on the table, grabs the still open bottle of rum and takes a long sip from it. Then she passes the bottle to Harry, lost in her thoughts.  
“Thank you” he says, taking a swig himself. “For the bottle and for the hand.”  
She smiles, distracted and still silent. He comes closer, lightly caressing her on the arms, the hands, the hair, the face.  
His touch calms her down a little bit and tames her thoughts, but her brain has already started running around. She’s just so tired. So tired of this life. She’s tired of having to work her ass off for an ungrateful mother, so tired of seeing her Harry breaking down because of that jerk of a father he has, so tired of having to dissimulate her affection to her first mate because having a boyfriend is not the wicked thing to do.  
“And honestly, thank you for everything else. For calming me down and defending me with that asshole” Harry adds, distracting Uma from her flow of thoughts. “Because I know that you went there to yell at him for what he said this morning.”  
Uma still says nothing. Instead, she wraps her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, pulling him as close as possible to her body in the tightest hug they’ve ever given each other. Her heart slows down when she feels his strong hold around her body, taming the anxiety that was building up inside of her while she was manifesting the idea in her head.  
“Let’s run away” she says, breaking the silence and voicing her thoughts.  
He pulls away slightly, even though they’re still anchored to each other. He looks surprised. “What?”  
“Let’s run away” she repeats. “There’s nothing for us here. Our parents do nothing but ruin our lives. I don’t want to keep living like this.” Her voice almost breaks when saying the last sentence and she doesn’t want to cry, so she stops the explanations here.  
“And where would we go?” he asks.  
She shrugs. “I don’t know. Out, at sea. We have a ship and we both know how to sail. The crew could join us, whoever wants to. We could find a way out of the barrier and explore the sea, finally see the rest of the world.”  
He smiles and takes a braid out of her face, caressing her hair. “Like we dreamt about when we were kids” he says. She laughs and nods. But then the smile washes out from his face and the uncertain look comes back. “Aren’t you worried about leaving all of it behind?” he asks. “I mean, you’re basically the queen of the Isle. We have the best trades. You don’t think you’ll miss it all?”  
She slides her hands from his neck to his face. “The only thing I’m worried about missing and leaving behind is _you_. The only thing I care about is _you_ ” she says. She leans in, making their foreheads touch. “If you’re with me, I don’t need to worry about anything else.”  
Uma doesn’t know much about love, but she always thought that a love declaration consisted in saying ‘I love you’ and not much else. But now she realizes that she has just declared her love to Harry without even saying the actual words.  
“Well, there’s also Gil, but that’s _different_ ” she adds, a few seconds later. It sorts of ruin the romantic atmosphere or whatever, but she would feel really bad leaving her other best friend behind.  
Harry chuckles. “Of course. We can’t forget him” he agrees.  
They both laugh. Harry rests his hands on hers, then slides them down to hold her wrists and caresses the back of her hands with his thumbs.  
“So, what do you say?” Uma asks.  
He smirks. “I say that I’m _madly_ in love with you and I would follow you even if you wanted to go to Mars.”  
Uma smiles. A wide, bright smile that makes him smile too, and when she sees Harry smile, she can’t help but feel her heart melting down. Tears of happiness tingle in her eyes, making them shine.  
“For real?”  
“Yes, for real” he answers. He fills the tiny space that there is left between them and kisses her.  
When they pull apart, she strokes her cheeks with her thumbs. Her hands look so tiny on his face.  
“You know that I love you too, right?” she whispers.  
He smiles and circles his arms around her waist, then he lifts her and does a little spin.  
“Of course I do.”


End file.
